NBA – Welcome Back!!

As the Toronto Raptors enter the 20th year, we finally get pro basketball back in the rink that was the home for the Vancouver Grizzlies for six seasons before moving to Memphis.

Interesting that prior to this the only former NBA team to ever play in Canada was known as the Toronto Huskies, who played for a single season in 1946–47 then folded.

Other attempts were made by Nelson Skalbania to get an NBA franchise to Vancouver in the early 80ties, but all attempts failed.

To the surprise of many Arthur Griffiths (Canucks owner) through Northwest Sports Enterprises officially announced in February 1993 he was hoping to bring an NBA franchise to Vancouver to play out of a rink that scheduled for completion for the 1995–96 season.

Our team had Big Country as one major asset to the team and for the first two seasons they were coached by Brian Winters which followed by a stint by Stu Jackson.

Toronto was awarded an expansion franchise September 30/93 and February 14/94 the NBA’s Expansion Committee gave a preliminary approval for Vancouver.

The final approval would be granted by the Board of Governors 27 April and it cost both Toronto and Vancouver US$125 million which was up from $32.5 million paid during the 1988–89 expansion. The Grizzlies became the NBA’s 29th franchise.

Each of the 27 NBA teams could only protect eight (8) of their players, and the two expansion teams could select one unprotected player from each team. Vancouver won the coin flip, and opted for a better position in the upcoming draft, allowing the Raptors the first pick.

Vancouver’s first overall pick was Knicks’ point guard Greg Anthony and other top players included guards Byron Scott and Gerald Wilkins, and swingman Blue Edwards.

The Raptors arrived in Vancouver this past week and spent the week training at Fortius Centre in Burnaby, which is state of the art for teams coming to Vancouver to train, regardless of the sport.

This meeting is not too surprising a sell-out crowd of 19,000 and rumors are on-going from various individuals that they want to get another franchise back on Canada’s West Coast.

Only time will tell??

More shots taken by D. Laird Allan on https://www.facebook.com/sportswave.ca